Fritz Anneke | Wisconsin Historical Society

Historical Essay

Anneke, Fritz 1818 - 1872

Soldier, Journalist and Revolutionary

Fritz Anneke | Wisconsin Historical Society
Dictionary of Wisconsin History. Dictionary of Wisconsin History.Ninth plate tintype/ferrotype portrait of Fritz Anneke sitting in a chair. Fritz Anneke was a German socialist and newspaper editor and writer. He immigrated to the United States with his family in 1849 and became a Colonel in the Wisconsin 34th Infantry. After the war he was an entrepreneur and journalist. He was the husband of Mathilde Franziska Anneke, the feminist activist and writer. Hand-coloring on cheeks. View the original image here.

Fritz Anneke was born in Dortmund, Westphalia, Prussia. After being discharged of his refugee Prussian artillery officer position, Anneke migrated to the U.S. and Milwaukee with his wife, Mathilde Franziska Anneke in 1849.

He established Wisconsin's first Turnverein and the People's Literary Society with other '48ers. In 1852 he left Wisconsin, and  served as editor or correspondent for various reform newspapers in the U.S from 1852 to 1859.

Then, from 1859 to 1861, he was a correspondent in Europe covering the Italian Revolution. Returning to Wisconsin in 1861, he served as an artillery officer in the Union army. Charges of insubordination and desertion soon frustrated his service, and after imprisonment and trial he was discharged from the army in 1863.

He then lived principally in St. Louis and contributed to Midwestern and German newspapers. In 1870 he moved to Chicago where he was agent for the German-American Society, or Deutsche Cesellschaft, until his death on December 8th, 1872. 

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[Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin biography]